Jornada Del Muerto
by Jake Todbloc
Summary: Kurt Wagner, known the world over as the X-Man Nightcrawler, died along with millions of others worldwide when the Ultimatum Wave struck the coasts of every continent across the globe. What would happen if he was given a second chance at life? In a different world? A VERY different world?


**Disclaimer**: Nightcrawler/Kurt Wagner and other assorted Marvel characters are the property of Marvel Entertainment. Batman and other assorted DC characters are the property of DC Comics. The whole of this work is written for absolutely no monetary compensation, and was created solely for the entertainment of the author and any potential readers.

**Note**: Contains spoilers from the Ultimatum story line in the Ultimate Marvel series.

**Jornada Del Muerto**

**Journey of the Dead Man**

**Chapter 1**

Requiem

_**"You wanna know what they were thinking when that wave came down...**_

_**"They weren't thinking about fighting back. They weren't thinking about regret. Or revenge. They were thinking about what made them...human.**_

_**"And now - they're gone."**_

**Jean Grey, Ultimate X-Men, Issue #98, Ultimatum**

Location: Earth - 1610, exact location unknown

Date: ?

(_Current date and time is unknown. Last known is 10/03/2009, 1613 Hours_)

Kurt was walking down mid-town Manhattan with Ali, Hank, and Warren; better known to the world as Dazzler, Beast, and Angel respectively. The cool autumn air blew through the city, ruffling hair, flapping coat-tails and lifting hats with reckless abandon. At the moment, this one seemingly insignificant moment, all was well; all was at peace. Right now, in that little space in between conflicts, they were free to just...

...Be.

He hadn't seen it until the last possible second. It was exciting and terrifying in ways that only forces of nature are capable of being. That something so seemingly ungainly could move so fast, so quietly...so stealthily through a city...

...simply amazing.

An immense wall of water came crashing down on him and his friends, slamming them into the concrete sidewalk with incredible force. The impact killed both him and Hank instantly, the ground cracking under the impact of their bodies on the concrete. Warren had managed to get Ali in the air before being taken over by the tidal wave, pulling her out of his hands. He did his best to get Ali out of the water before she drowned. Although he was able to pull her from the water in the end, it was to no avail; she was gone.

The curtain of water that had impacted across coasts worldwide had been dubbed the Ultimatum Wave. Magneto, distraught over the death of his daughter and son, shifted the magnetic poles of the planet causing damage in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and taking tens of millions of souls into the hereafter from all around the world.

There had been so much death. Everyday people blamed mutants and hunted them down indiscriminately. The old and the young, adults and children; all died equally under the weight of the sins of one man. A team of human extremists went into the Xavier School for gifted youngsters, and killed everyone. All those innocent children...slain for simply being born different.

Xavier himself was killed by Magneto; the enraged former father of two broke his best friend's neck.

And then it was all over.

Magneto was killed by a team of the remaining X-men, The Ultimates, and Nick Fury. Just before his death, he was told the truth about the whole of mutant kind; The unknown, top secret truth about their creation. Fury told him about how they were nothing more than the end result of an experiment thought up by a group of scientists from Canada, who somehow genetically engineered the Mutant Race.

Men. They, Mutants, were created by regular men.

After realizing what he had done, he came back to his senses and was filled with regret for all the death and destruction he had caused in grief for his fallen daughter, and his hatred for the innocents he thought were the cause of it all. With little prompting, Magneto shifted the magnetic poles back to their original position, before his head was disintegrated by Cyclops.

The world would never be the same again.

Kurt watched all this from some shadowy, hidden realm that existed between that of the living and that of the dead. He watched and screamed at the atrocities he was unable to prevent; he raged at not being able to aid his friends in their final hours. He watched as they died, and was horrified by the cruel and appalling ways they had been murdered and slain; in some instances, like they were nothing but cattle. He screamed in a voice that no one could hear and tried to vent his fury at a wall that he could not penetrate, and at himself for not being able to do anything about it.

He watched as Hank died alongside him. He watched as Warren performed CPR on Ali, trying desperately to bring his love from Death's cool grasp only to fail. He watched as Charles was all but assassinated by Magneto. He watched as the Mansion was overrun by those hate-filled and misguided people and screamed and wept for those that fell there. He watched as the X-Men mounted a counter attack against Magneto. The death toll was too great.

**Himself, Kurt Wagner, Nightcrawler**: Killed in New York by the Ultimatum Wave.

**Beast**: Killed in New York by the Ultimatum Wave.

**Dazzler**: Killed in New York by the Ultimatum Wave.

**Professor Xavier**: Killed by Magneto.

**Cypher**: Killed by Multiple Man.

**White Queen**: Killed by Multiple Man.

**Psylocke**: Killed by extremists.

**Angel**: killed by Sabretooth.

**Wolverine**: Killed by Magneto.

**Cyclops**: Killed by Quicksilver.

The X-Men, and so many more, lost their lives senselessly.

**Daredevil. Spiderman. Thor. Forge. Toad. Juggernaut. Polaris. Yellow Jacket. Wasp. Doctor Strange.**

All dead...

...And Kurt was made to watch all that had transpired, forced to bear witness to the horrors that man was willing, and eager in some cases, to do to his fellow man for their transgressions; real or imagined. Had that been all, he would have been at the brink of complete mental collapse, instead of over it.

But it wasn't. Not only had he been forced to watch as his friends were exterminated, Kurt was made to die with them. Kurt endured the deaths of the X-Men, feeling every crushing, stabbing, explosive, burning and hate-filled moment of their demise.

He was there when Warren flew into Magneto's haven and had his wing ripped off, before he was brutally beaten and humiliated by -and his neck broken beneath boot of- Sabertooth. The last thing he remembed before Angel's consciousness faded, was Sabertooth mocking him, saying something about him killing an angel, and that he was going to Hell.

He felt the excruciating pain of Dr. Strange's death, when Dormammu wrapped the sorcerer supreme in his own scarf, from the man's neck to the soles of his feet, and crushed him from bottom to top. The rapid compressions and incredible strength of the constrictions turned his organs to paste and shattered his skeletal system. The pressure increased so quickly that it forced the fragments of his shoulders, collarbone, and spinal column through his neck, causing his head to explode in a shower bone shrapnel and gore.

He could smell his charred flesh as he assumed the mantle of Logan, most of his skin and muscle tissue burnt away by Cyclops and Iron Man when Magneto took control of Cyclops' visor and Iron Man's power gauntlet. The blast of energy expanded around him, burning and charring and rendering his flesh to ash.

And yet...it did not kill him. His will -combined with his amazing healing factor- kept him alive; as Wolverine's indominable sense of purpose kept him from passing on right then. He felt surprisingly little pain at that moment, as most of his nervous system was attached to ash black skin or bubbling flesh, but felt himself losing consciousness.

With his fading strength, and what little control he had on his mostly bone arm, he stabbed his claws deep into Magneto's belly, shredding his insides with so much ease, they might as well have been nothing but air. But, before his body could regenerate much of anything at all, Magneto atomized the adamantium on his skeleton - before repelling the molecules away from one another - separating the strongest metal known to man into its individual particles and pulling it off his skeleton, taking every ounce of flesh with it and preventing him from healing ever again.

Lastly amongst his friends to die was Scott. If truth be told, his was the worst death, and the most senseless; the most needlessly taken.

It was eight days after the events of the Ultimatum Wave, and he - along with Ororo and Piotr - were standing before the press, trying to prevent another deplorable event from happening by asking that the mutants of America to submit to the government...when he died.

It happened so fast; when he was forced to live through Scott's death, he didn't know what happened before everything went black, signifying that he had died. It wasn't until he watched it from outside the body, at one thousandth the normal speed, that he saw what had happened: Quicksilver, who many had thought to be dead, zipped through the crowd at unbridled speeds, running up to the podium, and slammed a bullet through the former X-Man's head, killing him so fast he didn't know he was dead.

He wept bitter tears of frustration as he prayed, as he hoped with every fiber of his being that something -anything!- would save these people. He screamed in an all-consuming rage at being forced to watch as one atrocity after another occurred, completely incapable of shutting off his view of the world as everything went to Hell.

He felt the pain of death of so many countless millions, and wished that he could make them his own; to place that burden on his own shoulders, to be a martyr to this act of insanity. As he watched his friends die, one after another, he feared for who would invariably be next. As he was made to endure the death of seemingly every person that died, a single question burned brightly in his mind.

Why?

Why show him all this, when there was nothing he could do? Why show him how his world ended? Why make him watch and feel so much death and destruction? Send him to Heaven or Hell; do something -anything!- but please, stop this!

No more! Show him no more!

Finally, though, it did end. After witnessing the many gruesome deaths of his former leaders and comrades -his brothers and sisters in arms- and the countless millions of innocents and not so innocents, and with that end, his vision receded to nothing, and he was returned to the darkness from which all things came.

Peace.

Silence absolute surrounded him, and he could hear nothing save for his own thoughts. He could feel nothing, see nothing, smell nothing; his anger, hatred and sorrow, these things that no longer mattered, if they indeed mattered at all, bled from him, leaving only a sense of...

...Peace.

No more war. No more pain. No more loss. No more fear. No more horror.

Peace. At last.

For the first time in what felt like his entire life, Kurt Wagner knew peace.

He floated in the darkness, completely cut off from all of his five senses. In the darkness he existed within he knew nothing, save an all-encompassing loneliness in solitude, and had no choice but to accept his fate. It did not fill him with fear as it would a normal person. He had known it before -back before his time as an X-Man- so the sensation was nothing new to him. The main difference between then and now was that there was no pain involved this time around.

An age and a day passed silently by, the amount of time too long to be measured. All alone, with only his thoughts to keep him company, he allowed his conscious mind to fall away, cloaking himself within the absolute nothingness and simply drifted into an eternity of silent peace. After what may have been an eon, he felt something new. Something he hadn't felt in a long while.

Happiness.

It was strange, he had thought, to feel something like that with nothing to stimulate it; For such a sensation to arise, to just come from nowhere, made no sense.

As he let the darkness cocoon around him and his happiness began to bloom, he began to...hear? Yes, that's what it was; hearing. Wow. He hadn't used his ears in...The sense of hearing, through the use of his ears. He could hear again! And he heard...

...something.

It was very low at first, something he easily passed off as his imagination playing tricks on him. Slowly, though, it picked up in volume. As it got louder, he could hear it with greater and greater clarity. Voices...So many voices! They were harmonizing, making such a beautiful melodious sound, that it made his heart fill with an indescribable joy!

Soon he began to see a light as well. A bright white light filled the darkness, unveiling himself to his own eyes for the first time in a long time, still dressed in the clothes he had died in.

And then...then he saw something he thought he would never see again.

His friends.

Ali, Hank, Warren, Scott, Logan, Professor Xavier...all of his friends whose deaths he'd witnessed were there. A bright, multicolored light emanated from the center of their chests, flooding into their extremities and pulsing with their heartbeats. It was like looking at light through a prism, or seeing a rainbow. It was...

Beautiful.

Logan and Charles stood in the front, with Scott, Ali, Hank and Warren in the back. Logan walked ahead of the group.

"Hey Kurt, how ya been?"

"Good, my friend, I've been good."

The old warrior gave a nod and a smile as he stepped back in line with Charles. And then their voices joined those of the choir that had filled his ears before their arrival. As they sang, their iridescence and luminescence increased exponentially. The light took on the qualities of a fire, waving about in some unseen wind; raising, burning brightly and waning with the tempo of the song. For several moments, they sang along with the countless and unseen thousands or millions or billions of voices. Then something changed. They began to sing a different song than that of the choir.

_"Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine,_

_et lux perpetua luceat eis._

_Te decet hymnus Deus, in Sion_

_et tibi reddetur votum in Ierusalem._

_Exaudi orationem meam;_

_ad te omnis caro veniet._

_Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, _

_et lux perpetua luceat eis."_

His eyes widened in shock. He knew what this was!

As a child -while a part of the circus- he had wandered through the countryside, and had found a cemetery linked to a church. After inspecting the various gravestones, he walked to the doors of the house of worship and entered into the foyer, not wanting to enter the church proper and be discovered by those inside. Kurt was not a demon, but his appearance led most to believe otherwise.

It was a funeral. The people inside were having a black mass; a celebration of the eternal rest of a loved one. The song, in latin, was a requiem; a prayer to help the dead to pass on into Heaven.

There were many, many people there, and some were weeping openly, sobbing into a handkerchief, others crying happy tears, smiling as the teardrops made their journey ever southward, and still others, misty-eyed, singing loudly and proudly, happy grins of mischief on their lips, laughter and joy in their words. This man, Kurt had thought, whoever he was, he was well known, and very well loved.

And now... now it was being sung for him.

As they continued to sing, they formed a semi-circle around him. Their lips upturned in smiles, their faces alight with joy, their hymnal words spoke of blissful eternity.

_"Absolve, Domine,_

_animas omnium fidelium defunctorum_

_ab omni vinculo delictorum_

_et gratia tua illis succurente_

_mereantur evadere iudicium ultionis,_

_et lucis æternae beatitudine perfrui."_

Suddenly, he was filled with an overwhelming urge to sing as well. His mouth moved of it's own accord, his vocal chords singing words in a language almost completely unknown to him. His voice was now counted amongst those that had died and been admitted into the realm of eternal...perpetual...bliss. As his voice rang out in rapture, his own chest began to glow, filling his vision with hues of color beyond the spectrum of light a human was capable of seeing. It wasn't until he could feel it that he realized that it was his soul; the light of his soul burned brightly, as bright, if not brighter than those around him!

_"Libera me, Domine, de morte æterna,_

_in die illa tremenda_

_Quando cæli movendi sunt et terra._

_Dum veneris iudicare sæculum per ignem._

_Tremens factus sum ego, et timeo, dum discussio_

_venerit, atque ventura ira._

_Quando cæli movendi sunt et terra._

_Dies illa, dies iræ, calamitatis et miseriæ,_

_dies magna et amara valde._

_Dum veneris iudicare sæculum per ignem._

_Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine:_

_et lux perpetua luceat eis."_

As he continued to sing, his heart was filled a joy that he had never known. A level of peace -a peace beyond the comprehension of the living- surrounded him, covering him like a blanket from a loving parent. Soon...soon he would be in the presence of the Light of The Lord, and know only love, happiness, and joy.

_"In paradisum deducant te Angeli:_

_in tuo adventu suscipiant te Martyres,_

_et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Ierusalem._

_Chorus Angelorum te suscipiat,_

_et cum Lazaro quondam paupere _

_æternam habeas requiem." __**(1)**_

His eyes fluttered shut and he smiled as the song ended. The choir continued to harmonize in the background.

"Soon, I will gain admittance into the promised land", he whispered as he opened his eyes, the smile fell from his lips as he looked on to his comrades, "But not yet."

"No, Kurt", Ali said as she came forward and embraced him in a tight hug. "Not yet."

"You are still needed my good man", Xavier said as he laid a hand on his shoulder. "There is still much to do before you may rest, and it pains me to say that we will not be able to help you."

"Why me? And, more importantly, for what reason?", he asked as Ali released him and stepped back, still smiling happily.

"You have been called upon by The Eternal Presence, the entity that created all things known and unknown", Hank said softly. "There is a world, another Earth, a parallel where all the things that had occurred to our previous home world...never happened. Where we never existed. This Earth, that you are needed for, is in great turmoil; for it is not just the planet that you will be protecting, but the entire universe. As we speak, time is slowly counting down to when it will be destroyed by those who would deny the eternal light of sacred divinity to those that would bask in Its warmth, and use it to combat the oppressive darkness."

"...This Eternal Presence, he is God?", Kurt asked, not sure what was going on. It was Professor Xavier who answered.

"It, Kurt. The Eternal Presence has no gender, and truly no name, so we call it what it is, The Eternal Presence. It is an entity that created everything; time and space, mass and gravity, sentient and nonsentient creatures and beings. It simply created everything for the sole purpose of existing, so that they may **be**. And right now, there is a being, a person, that threatens all living things everywhere, from our own little universe and from the whole of the multiverse as well. And It has chosen you to stop that threat, for if it continues it's actions without someone to stop them, all will be lost. Only you can stop this complete annihilation of life, Kurt. The Eternal Presence picked you specifically."

Kurt felt an unbearable weight placed on his shoulders from the journey that was being laid upon him. Of all the people, creatures and things from every other universe...there had to be a better choice than him. To leave the fate of an entire universe in the hands of a, a man...no, not a man; a boy...a boy with such obvious flaws such as his...this was lunacy. Panic quickly set in; there was no way he could do this! No way!

"I...I can't do this. Please! Do not ask this of me! How can I do this? How? How can there really be no one else? All of you know what I've done while I was in Weapon X, and what I did while I was in the X-Men! Ali...what I did to you. What I tried to do...How can you trust me to save countless lives, when I can barely be trusted to do what is right? There have to be millions if not billions of others better suited to do this...Why me!?"

"It is simple, Kurt", Warren said solemnly, laying a hand on his shoulder, and looking him dead in the eye. "It is is the will of The Eternal Presence. It believes, beyond _any _and **all **doubt, that of all those millions and billions of others, you are the best choice. I can say with absolute certainty that there is no one else suited to do what must be done. Your skills, forced upon you by those that would use you as a weapon, are a dire necessity. Without intervention by an agent of The Eternal Presence, this universe you are being sent to -and every other universe out there- and all who inhabit them, will perish, consumed by the fathomless hunger of the darkness. It, and many of its mirrors, were almost destroyed once; they will not survive a second time."

Kurt looked down, his body tensing in anger, before he sucked in a breath and blew it out harshly as he relaxed. His anger would not get him closer to Elysium, but could, quite quickly, push him further back from promised Bliss. "My sins; I must do this to earn absolution?"

"No", Charles chuckled, drawing Kurt's attention from Warren, "You were absolved of all sins when you died. Your soul has been weighed, and you were found worthy of admittance. The light of your eternal spirit and your good deeds outweighed your misdeeds and the darkness held within. While you did some very terrible things, very few of them were of your own choice, and those that were have been forgiven by those you have wronged. Truth be told, The gates are open to you; you need but ask for your requiem to be completed, and eternal bliss is yours."

Ali pointed to something behind him, and when he turned around and saw what it was, he nearly fell to his knees just from the sheer splendor of what he was seeing.

The Gates of fabled Elysium. The doors that led into Heaven, Paradise, or so many other names from so many other religions in so many other languages...The entrance to his eternal peace was right in front of him.

The sheer beauty of it! It was impossible to describe; it simply defied explanation! The gates shimmered and shined, glowed and glimmered; seemingly made from precious gold and silver, mixed with every gem known to man and cut to absolute perfection, allowing the light from within to fill each stone and sparkle in beauty beyond words. The intricate designs, the impossible structures, configurations and combinations of precious metals and gems! Oh great Lord in Heaven, the splendor was indescribable!

"But...", he began weakly before being struck by a sudden loss for words. Joyous, Blissful Eternity was literally within walking distance...to get it, all he needed to do was condemn a universe to complete and total Oblivion.

Maybe he just misunderstood?

"If I enter the gates, what happens then?"

Ali was next to answer his question. "Nothing. Once inside the gates of Elysium, there is no reason for you to leave...unless you want another chance at life. You would be surprised at how many people actually choose to go through life again. It's freakishly high. Well, you **could**, I guess, before all life gets blinked out of existence."

Kurt shook his head. "No- no, that's not what I mean. What will happen to the world you were talking about? If I enter Elysium, what happens to the world? Will someone else save it?"

For the first time since meeting the deceased X-Men again, their smiles truly dropped from their faces. They looked about uncertainly, unsure of what to say. Scratching the edge of his chin, Logan stepped forward and, when Kurt's attention was on him, he spoke.

"We meant what we said earlier, bub. You're the only one who can stop the darkness from rising and engulfing that world in a shitstorm so big, it'll wipe out all life in the multi-verse. Countless trillions upon trillions** upon trillions** of lives...gone. Nothing, not even the dust, would remain."

"So...", he hedged, licking his suddenly dry lips, "I either go to Heaven, enjoy bliss for an eternity, or...*sigh*...or go back to the world of the living, in a universe not of my own, and try to prevent it from being completely obliterated."

He sighed and rumbled out a low chuckle. The one thing he wanted more than anything was being delayed, and there was literally nothing that he could do. Well, nothing that he was willing to do anyway. He turned to his friends and grinned widely at them. A single thought popped into his conscious mind, one that had been used in many movies and books. 'All that must happen for Evil to succeed, is for the Good and Just to stand by, and allow it to happen.' As his mind absorbed this, another followed on its heels. 'The greatest proof of love is sacrifice; personal sacrifice. To willingly give everything of yourself, to consciously risk all that you are or will be for another, whether it be a loved one or a stranger for nothing in return, is the ultimate gift.'

"I think the choice is an easy one, ja?"

Upon hearing these words the others chuckled or laughed right out; it was pretty obvious what choice he would take. Charles raised his hands and cupped the sides of Kurts face bringing it close to his own and stared into his eyes.

"That, Mr Wagner", he said solemnly, his voice filled with emotion, "That is why you were chosen. It takes a man of great character to walk away from Heaven in order to save a world that is not his own; to risk his soul for those who may not be worthy of it."

Kurt clapped the bald professor on the shoulder, as the elder mutant, a man that he likened to a father-figure despite what had happened in the past, pulled him into a hug. After a short moment they pulled away and Kurt looked to his friends.

"This mission sounds like it could be fun; anyone want to come with me?", he asked, the grin still on his lips.

"No can do", Logan said with a sigh. He pulled his fingers into a fist and released his claws. "If I could, I'd be right there by your side, bub. **Right**. **There**. But we can't. There's rules that need followin', and **we **can't break em..._not for lack of trying though_." He looked around shiftily before wrapping an arm around Kurt's shoulders and stage whispered, "If you do find a way to get some of us back to the land of the living (_you know, without selling your soul or something equally shitty), _don't hesitate to look up your old pal Logan. This "Bliss" shit's for the birds. No cigars, no beer, no grain alcohol...None of the good stuff at all. Heaven my ass."

"Anyway", Hank interjected loudly, as the others did their best to contain their laughter, and pulled something from behind his back and gave it to Kurt. "Just because we can't join you, doesn't mean we can't help you; well, at least a little."

It was a little electronic device, about ten inches by seven and a quarter inch thick. On the back and sides it was a deep gunmetal grey while the top was a touch screen which shut off after a few seconds.

"What is it? A little computer?"

"It's a high capacity data tablet, indestructible, and loaded with stuff from our original world. Designs that I made that I never had the time to produce, plans for equipment and gear that I never got to fully test when alive...and all forms of media from our world. Where you're going...well, I won't spoil it for you. It's...different. I thought it wise to give you a taste of home, at least in some way. The tastes there leave much to be desired. There are books too."

"Thank you mein freunde. Is there anything else that needs to be addressed?"

The others shook their heads and remained silent. The mood shift to a more somber one and Kurt was feeling their anxiety. He held the device to his chest tightly, treasuring it immensely. How often did one receive gifts from their friends after they had already died? On the day of one's requiem, to ease their soul into fabled Elysium?

"When do I leave?"

Logan scratched his chin, retracted the claws on his other hand and said, "Whenever yer ready bub."

He looked at his friends for what could possibly be the last time. He exchanged hugs and handshakes with his comrades; smiles, kind words, and laughter were shared amongst them. Finally though, it was time to leave.

"We will meet again", he said, the steely resolve heard by those present as he walked away. "I promise."

"You'd better, bub", Logan said with a chuckle full of mirth, "the place ain't the same without ya."

"Hurry up and leave already!", Ali yelled out with laughter in her voice. "The faster you leave, the faster you come back!"

"Hey, take care of yourself Kurt! When you get back, we'll resurrect Dread Captain Bluetail!"

"Stay safe my friend! Don't worry about the tablet! It's more durable than it looks!"

"Remember Kurt", Cyclops called out as the blue elf continued onward to his future journey, "we are always here for you. Always."

Kurt did not look back as he continued to walk away. He did not think his resolve would last if he did. Instead he kept a smile on his face, and waved over his shoulders to his friends. With one final wave, he disappeared in a flash of gold light and orange smoke.

"We **will **meet again, Mr. Wagner", Charles Xavier whispered to himself as they made their way to the gates of Elysium. Their faces were alight with Joy everlasting as they walked to where they would meet their past, present and future comrades. Where they would wait for Kurt.

"I know it."

o)O_:-0-:_O(o

Location: Earth - 16, Approx. 230,000 miles above Earth's surface

Location: Date:11/19/2010, 2013 Hours

Kurt spasmed suddenly, gurgling and twitching as if in a seizure. Within seconds of his initial movement, he quickly rolled over on to his stomach and proceeded to cough up two lungs full of water as he wobbled his way to a hand and knee; for some reason, the limbs on the right side of his body weren't working right. The salt water burned in ways he couldn't describe at the moment as it left his lungs, tore through his esophagus and spilled onto the ground through his mouth and nose. As his lungs emptied themselves, his stomach decided to void itself of its contents, expelling the popcorn, hotdog and soda he had eaten earlier in the movie theater in a waterfall of foulness. As his body got rid of all nonessential material, he came to a sudden realization: relish and onions taste a hell of a lot better going down than back up.

He was completely soaked, still wearing the clothes that he had died in; even that driver's cap he was sure was lost forever in a sewer somewhere. His tail twitched spastically as it moved at a snail's pace towards the woolen item, hooked the tip under the lip of the hat, and pulled it away, inch by torturous inch, from the ever expanding puddle of refuse before it could get ruined.

After dry heaving for a few moments more, he crawled backwards, each moment causing a stabbing pain to erupt in his head, and a burning sensation from his chest that was making it hard to breathe. When he was sure he was far enough away from the puddle of filth, he fell over to his left side, his head luckily falling onto the softness of his woolen cap. His vision was fading rapidly, but one of the last things he saw was a man wearing black and gray costume of some kind, his face covered with a horned black cowl. Then everything went dark, and he slipped into unconsciousness once more.

o)O_:-0-:_O(o

Location: Earth - 16, Approx. 230,000 miles above Earth's surface

Date: 11/19/2010, 2015 Hours

"Well, I guess that's one way to end an argument. Anyone want to see if we can bring in a dead angel to even the score?"

Batman -along with Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Superman, and Martian Manhunter- looked incredulously over at the Flash who had the audacity to make such a terrible joke, before returning their gazes down to where a strange, midnight-blue skinned, apparently demonic young man -dark skin, orange eyes, spade-tipped tail and all- suddenly appeared. He lay -after puking his insides out all over the round, and very expensive, touch-screen map- on the table in the middle of Situation Room 1 on the Watchtower, an orbital space platform that was the secret headquarters for an organization of crime fighting superheroes. An organization known the world over as...

...The Justice League.

**o)O_:-0-:_O(o**

**Story Notes are on Profile.**


End file.
